


my strength, your strength

by ffantastic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Figure Skaters AU, Ice Skating, M/M, ice dance, keith is a single men's skater, lance is an ice dancer, mentions of homophobia in sports, that's the story, they train at the same rink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-02 05:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17258426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffantastic/pseuds/ffantastic
Summary: "Can I help you?"His voice startled Lance, so different in person than on TV or from far away, from the other side of a competition-size rink. So much quieter, somehow, less of the abrasive confidence Lance had come to associate with Keith. He'd always thought of Keith as someone far out of reach, a famous skater, maybe not even a person, but up close in training he was a lot less intimidating than in a sparkly competition outfit and a fake smile. He was just a guy. A guy in tight black work-out clothes who needed help with something Lance was definitely, shockingly, really really good at. A grin spread on Lance's face."No, but I thinkIcan helpyou."-Lance is an ice dancer unsure about where to go after his partner suffered an injury in the last competition. Maybe all he needed to pick himself back up was a stubborn single men's skater who shares the rink with him by chance one morning. Maybe they both needed each other.





	my strength, your strength

**Author's Note:**

> short disclaimer: i'm not a figure skater, so however much research i do, it'll never be completely accurate! i did take some artistic freedom, too. more about that in the end notes, though. hope you enjoy :)

These mornings in winter at home held a specific routine for Lance. He wasn't too hung up on routines, usually - since he'd been old enough to compete internationally, there had been only a handful he could hold onto. On the road all the time, it was a difficult task to find something familiar amidst the chaos and the unpredictable, so he treasured the weeks in the year he could spend at his home rink.

Allura and he had just come back from the Grand Prix Final two days earlier, having only the last place and a bad ankle injury to show for it. Last year, they hadn't made it to the final at all, so placing last should have been a great success, especially in as static a field as ice dance, should have been a bubble of pride for Lance to carry around. But it wasn't – couldn’t be, when his partner was injured at home and he still had to work through the mental block that it was _his fault_.

Compared to the rink he'd just come back from, his home rink was tiny and old-fashioned, but today, that was what made Lance smile the most. Early in the morning, there was no one else there, and the Christmas decorations overhead reflected on the untouched, glossy ice. He tightened his skates with newfound enthusiasm – there was nothing better than the sound of his blades on new ice when he was completely alone. A soft instrumental version of "All I Want for Christmas Is You" played over the speakers as he slid out onto the ice, and for the first time in weeks, there was no stress thrumming beneath his skin.

Lance still saw the fall every time he closed his eyes, how his hands slipped at exactly the wrong moment, the fearful widening of Allura's eyes in the split-second before her ankle hit the ice. But he was alone now, and his steps were sure as always. He still glided over the ice fluidly, let the practiced motions take over, went faster until the wind ruffled his hair, and the rink around him blurred to monochrome colors through his twizzles. He let certainty overtake him that he was _good_ at this, that everyone made mistakes, and injuries healed, and a content calm filled him, almost like Christmas spirit.

Someone whizzed past him, and he barely swerved out of the way of a perfectly executed triple axel. The light glinted off this guy's skates and Lance was mesmerized, until his side collided with the boards and he shook his head to clear it. His heart was still pounding from the nearly avoided collision. He hadn't even noticed he wasn't alone anymore.

"Sorry," the other guy threw over his shoulder with barely a glance, and skated away, graceful, as if he wasn't affected in the slightest.

He didn't sound sorry.

Of course, Lance knew he was training at the same rink, even if he had never met him there. It had been all the news for a while, that star skater Keith Kogane was switching home rinks, switching coaches to someone more familiar with ice dance to work on his choreographies and his artistic skills. Lance was also aware that they shared a part of their coaching staff this season, and yet he had never expected to actually meet Keith or see him up close. He was on a completely different level in nearly everything.

Barely older than Lance, but already successful beyond belief, never far away from winning any competition. And as a men's single skater, active in the most revered discipline of figure skating. No matter how far and how good Lance got, how talented and hard-working he was, Keith would always get more attention simply because of his discipline. Lance didn't hate singles skaters at all, and he didn’t _hate_ Keith either. But there was some sort of negative coil in his stomach as he watched him, already at the other end of the rink.

Keith was practicing footwork now, and even from a distance, without seeing his expression, it was clearly not his favorite part of skating. Lance pushed off the boards, just skating in circles, watching Keith. There was nothing better to do anyway, and he enjoyed watching people skate almost as much as he enjoyed skating himself. Especially when it was a talented skater, and Keith definitely had talent. His footwork was elegant, practiced to near-perfection, but it was also rushed and a little sloppy, as if he couldn't await the next jump.

Lance slid closer to him without thinking about it, until he saw his eyebrows drawn deep into his face in a frown. Keith stopped and looked at him.

"Can I help you?"

His voice startled Lance, so different in person than on TV or from far away, from the other side of a competition-size rink. So much quieter, somehow, less of the abrasive confidence Lance had come to associate with Keith. He'd always thought of Keith as someone far out of reach, a famous skater, maybe not even a person, but up close in training he was a lot less intimidating than in a sparkly competition outfit and a fake smile. He was just a guy. A guy in tight black work-out clothes who needed help with something Lance was definitely, shockingly, really really good at. A grin spread on Lance's face.

"No, but I think _I_ can help _you_."

"I don't think so."

Keith crossed his arms and his blades made a harsh noise on the ice as he moved them back and forth, impatient, but Lance was not deterred.

"Come on, you know yourself that the dance-y stuff is your weakness."

Keith's eyes slid to the side, and he stopped moving his feet. His shoulders hunched the smallest bit, and that was as much of an admission as Lance was going to get.

"Your weakness is my strength. So, I can help you."

"What are you saying?"

Keith's eyes roamed his face, and his tone was still not accepting, but Lance kept the smile on his face. He couldn't stop to think about what he was doing, because it was a bad idea on so many levels, but he still wanted to do it anyway.

"I'm saying that I don't have a partner to practice my program with, and you need practice."

Keith's arms dropped to the side, and Lance spun around slowly to pass the time while his thoughts were whirring in overdrive, a victorious grin on his face. He met Keith's wide eyes, and skated backwards. Keith followed, slowly, still wary.

"I'm not an ice dancer. And I've definitely never _followed_ in dancing."

Lance shrugged, still smiling. Their blades were almost synchronous now, and it was as good a beginning to a dance as any.

"I'm good at leading."

"You won't be able to lift me."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Keith narrowed his eyes at him, still following a slow curve around the rink, and Lance appraised him. He hadn’t been serious, but Keith wasn't that much taller than Allura, and lifting was about technique, not just about strength.

"I should practice my own stuff-"

"Oh really, as if you haven't perfected everything already."

Their eyes met again, and Lance didn't have to voice what they both knew: It wasn't enough to do something once, and skating skills didn't stay the same if you had them once, they were a constant struggle to keep consistent. But he also didn’t need to say that doing something different for once didn’t mean stagnation, and he could pinpoint the moment Keith broke.

"Alright. Show me how to ice dance."

Keith had followed Lance around the rink, and they were at the point they had started at when a soft piano rendition of "Winter Wonderland" drifted through the speakers. Lance turned around and slid in next to Keith, humming along. Keith was still stiff and wary, looking at Lance as if he didn’t know what to expect.

"Okay," Lance said, "now just take my hands."

He offered him his hands and showed him a hand-in-hand position. Through both of their gloves, Keith's hands were still warm, and larger than the hands Lance was used to holding in this position. Still a little smaller than his, though, and strangely jittery. Keith didn’t meet his eyes.

"Now what?"

"Now we just skate a bit."

They did another slow round around the rink, until Keith's hands had stilled, and his shoulders relaxed. He had a distinct skating style, impossible to describe, but Lance could probably have picked him out blindfolded by the sound of his blades on the ice. Keith was also obviously not used to skating with someone else. He kept trying to go faster, pulling on Lance's hands and almost escaping the hold before he reined himself back in. Lance bit his lip, so he wouldn't laugh at Keith as his scowl deepened with every glide.

"I think," Lance said, elongating the _i_ to annoying proportions, "you're ready for some edges."

Keith rolled his eyes with his whole body but didn’t let go of Lance's hands. They did another round around the rink, this time with forwards edges on every step. It was one of the easiest footwork skills that still looked pretty in a competition dance, and Lance enjoyed it a lot, could probably have gone a whole hour doing edges, but Keith was getting restless. As deep as his edge and as high as his free leg was, his hands were wiggling, and he was sighing, and as soon as they had completed their round, Lance changed his grip on Keith's hands and spun him around to face Lance. Keith hadn't expected this and stumbled a bit. Lance laughed at him but kept a secure grip on his hands.

"Asshole," Keith hissed.

It wasn’t too biting. Half an hour ago, Lance might have argued back, called him something worse, but he wasn’t in the mood for it now. Especially since Keith's arms were still trembling a little bit, and he wasn’t meeting Lance's eyes. Maybe he wasn’t as arrogant and stuck-up as Lance had imagined him. Maybe he was just a little awkward.

Lance grit his teeth and pulled Keith closer to hold him in a real waltz hold, hand on his shoulder blade, arm out to the side. Keith put his hand on Lance's shoulder without prompting and looked at him with cautious interest. He seemed a lot closer, face to face as they were now, and Lance willed the warmth in his cheeks away.

"You were getting bored right? Now you get to skate backwards for a bit – lift your free leg a little when you – oh, yeah, like that, exactly."

Keith stared at him, unimpressed. It might have been a step he'd never done like this before, but he was still an experienced skater, not too phased by most easy steps. Lance led him across the rink in an almost-dance, a little slower and wobblier than he was used to, but his heart still soared.

"Isn't this the beginning of your short dance?"

Lance startled. Keith was still dutifully doing the steps Lance had instructed. The rhythmic sound of their blades was its own melody above the faint music, and Keith's breath was warm on his cheeks.

"You know my short dance?"

Lance couldn’t keep the pleasant surprise out of his voice. He'd become a competitive skater for a reason – of course he wanted people to watch him. And if Keith watched him, he wasn't as invisible in the mass of other skaters as he sometimes thought he was doomed to be. Keith shrugged as an answer, but it was enough for Lance to grin, and lead him into a simplified version of his short dance.

Keith couldn’t do all of it, didn’t know every step, but he watched attentively, and his twizzles weren’t half-bad for someone who looked as if he'd rather be anywhere else while he did them. Lance just laughed and showed him again when he couldn’t do something, and before long, Keith was smiling, and following along easily to Lance's charisma. Maybe that was what he had been lacking – someone to show him how to enjoy dancing. And there was no one better than Lance for the job.

The lifts did turn out to be a problem. Not because Keith was too tall or too heavy – though both of those might have been the case. He just didn’t let himself be lifted. It took a few rounds of waltzing around the rink for Lance to pry out of him why.

They weren't completely alone anymore. At a public rink in the high season outside of their official training time, that wasn’t a surprise, but Lance hadn't noticed until the music turned louder, now a pop song instead of an instrumental Christmas piece, and Keith stiffened and stumbled over his next turn. The problem couldn’t be that he was nervous about skating in front of other people. He was never affected at competitions, when cameras were rolling, and he was on live TV. But the people did have something to do with it, because Keith was back to an impassive face and less-than-impressive skating, just because someone had passed on the other side of the boards.

Lance let go of his hands and came to a stop in the middle of the rink.

"Okay, what's the problem here?"

Keith lifted his head and when their eyes met, something pained flashed through Keith's. Lance blinked, and they were back to normal, still dark and too intense, but passive. Keith sighed deeply.

"Do you not… care?"

Lance frowned.

"About what? People seeing me skate? I mean, that's kind of my job-"

"About people seeing you skate _with me_. About your _reputation_."

"What – reputation?"

Keith furrowed his eyebrows and pursed his lips, and he might have been frustrated, but Lance couldn't take him seriously with his mussed-up hair and his pale cheeks flushed from exercise.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Lance did have an inkling, but he didn’t want to indulge in these kinds of worries just then. He still felt so light, warmed from the inside not only by skating, but by the slowly returning certainty that there was something worthwhile he was good at. Lance skated a slow backwards circle and kept his eyes on Keith, almost mocking him.

"Do I?"

Keith did a small step, so he didn’t have to raise his voice, his face still stuck in a frown.

"Do you really want these kinds of rumors about you floating around?"

Lance laughed, and it was loud enough to reverberate through the rink. He spread his arms out.

"There's enough rumors already, man. Don't know how they could get any worse."

It wasn’t the absolute truth, and it shone in Keith's eyes that he understood that, too. Of course, Lance cared about the rumors, and they could always get worse. It had been bad enough when the media had found out he'd never seriously dated Allura – sadly, the time when he had been most relevant to skating news. Now, officially and openly single, he was almost used to subtle questions and implications in interviews that he might not be straight – not accusing, just poking, trying to get him to say something on his own volition. He never did, because it was still a clear disadvantage to openly be anything but straight, and everyone was aware of it. And for Keith, who didn’t have an on-ice alibi-girlfriend, it was probably worse. Maybe that was why he was so hesitant. Maybe it had been drilled into his head since he was a kid, that no one should ever think he was gay, whether he really was or not, because if they did, he'd never get a gold medal again.

Lance hadn't heard any rumors about Keith, but then again, he knew next to nothing about his life anyway. It was as if he didn’t exist outside of competitions, and even seeing him here in front of him, crossing his arms and frowning and moving back and forth to not get completely cold, was a miracle. It was too good to be true. They'd had fun until now, and Lance didn’t mind a bit of a butchered reputation if it meant more of it. He didn’t know about Keith – and by the closed-off look on his face, it wouldn’t do much good to ask – but Lance had been waiting for the right opportunity to come out for a while now. He hadn’t known of any figure skaters, or any other male athletes, who identified as bisexual when he was growing up, and being that for a new generation of athletes would be as impactful as any medal. Gold medals were fine and all, but he'd talked to Allura a long time ago, at the start of their shared career, that it would never be the most important thing to them. Being a trailblazer in a completely different way sounded nice, too, and she'd be right there with him, and maybe, with a bit of luck, not only her.

Keith studied Lance's face, intensely, then something hardened in his gaze.

"You really don't care?"

Lance shook his head, numb from all the heavy thoughts still rolling around in his head. But it had been the right answer, because Keith smiled, determined.

"Good. Then I don’t care either. Show me a lift."

They started easy, but it took a few rounds until Keith was comfortable standing on top of Lance's skates while they glided slowly over the ice. He had just gotten used to not skating all alone, and now already he had to give all control over speed and direction of his own body to Lance. But Keith didn’t seem to have any distrust in Lance's abilities at all, just in his own to keep steady. His head was turned to the side, face relaxed but attentive. This close, Lance could make out his hair tie, even though it was the same dark color as his hair. Keith never wore his hair back in competition, and it hid his small black ear studs.

"I know you do this all the time, but it still doesn’t feel right." he mumbled. He was holding onto Lance's hands a little too tightly.

Lance shrugged, tearing his gaze away from Keith's ear. He'd still been counting the piercings.

"Do you feel up to putting your shins on my thighs?"

Keith nodded slowly.

"That's still not what you do in your short dance, though."

"Yeah, I won't try holding you horizontally with one arm, to be honest."

Keith snorted. It transformed his face for a split-second, and he looked younger, relaxed, like he was having fun, doing something he loved. Lance's heart skipped a beat and didn’t return to its regular rhythm afterwards. It didn’t get better when it was all too easy to lead Keith into the lift, as if they'd practiced it for days already, not tried it on a whim. And Keith was so close like this, closer than before, with all his weight on Lance's bent knees and his hand tight on the back of Lance's neck. He leaned out to the side like he'd done this kind of thing hundreds of times before, and Lance felt his muscles tightening where he held Keith's waist. They left the position entirely too soon, and Lance couldn’t react properly when Keith wobbled a bit on the ice after he'd let him down again. His heart was still beating overtime, and he didn’t know how he could ever have been cold.

Soon after, other people filed into the rink, and there wasn't enough space anymore for big sweeping steps, and Lance let go of Keith's hands, only half-relieved. Keith didn’t turn around and skate away but stayed close and apprehended Lance with a thoughtful look.

"Did that help?" Keith asked, completely sincere.

"What? I was helping you?"

"Come on." Keith raised one of the corners of his mouth, and something about the expression was so intimately mocking that Lance wanted to look away but couldn’t. "I know you really just needed someone to show you that you could still do that."

He waved his hand around in circles and figure eights, as if that had any sort of meaning to Lance. It didn’t, but comprehension dawned on him, heavy in his stomach, anyway. If Keith knew his short program, he had probably watched them at the Grand Prix, or at least knew what had transpired. Lance crossed his arms in front of his chest, suddenly cold.

"Do what?"

"Skate? I guess? Lead someone. Be dependable."

Lance didn’t say anything and averted his eyes. It was true that skating with Keith had gnawed away at exactly that insecurity, until it was almost non-existent – if he could hold someone inexperienced steady and without the slightest injury, he couldn’t be absolute garbage. But now, even if the insecurity had shrunk, it throbbed again, reminded Lance it was there, would never really be gone.

Keith touched his arm, and Lance found Keith with his hand on his arm, eyes focused on Lance. He looked uncomfortable but determined. Lance met his eyes, and Keith cleared his throat.

"Why don’t you show me how good your jumps still are?"

There was a clear challenge in Keith's words, and Lance knew it was a distraction, knew he had no chance against _Keith_ when it came to _jumps_ , but he couldn’t help it. It was written in his very genes, it was the born athlete in him and just who he was as a person that he couldn’t help but say yes to a challenge. Lance stood straight again and stretched his arms out in front of him, and the cocky grin came easy this time around.

"Still?"

Keith grinned back, and they skated off to a less crowded part of the rink. They weren’t holding hands anymore, but Lance's hands were still warm, as if someone was still squeezing his fingers too tightly.

Lance hadn’t gone to ice dance because his jumps were below average – it was because he was that good at the dance part of it. But he had never been an effortlessly talented jumper either and getting him to quads would have been a hell of a lot of work, so the decision had been easy. He still tried out jumps sometimes when he wasn’t too piled up with other things, but it couldn’t compare to anything Keith did. What started out as Lance testing out how many doubles he still had – most of them, at least after a few tries – soon turned into Keith showing off, and once, just this once, Lance couldn’t harbor any sort of jealousy or resentment towards him. Because Keith was clearly the effortlessly talented jumper they'd all hoped to be at one point, and Lance had known this, seen it from far away, but never from close enough that he could have reached out and cut himself on his glinting blades. Seeing him slice triples through the air was mesmerizing, heart-stopping, and seeing him land a quad from this close would have made Lance sway on the spot.

But Keith wasn’t perfect, and, already red-faced and at the end of his stamina, he attempted two triple axels after another, and wound up sitting on the ice after one and a half. He looked up at Lance, surprised, arms and legs spread out on the ice, and threw his head back and laughed. Lance had to giggle a bit, but he went over and helped Keith up.

"Exhausted yourself, huh?"

Keith snorted, drew his eyebrows together in determination, and skated off to show Lance another perfectly executed jump, even if it was only a double loop.

After that, he skated up to Lance, flushed to his ears and still breathless, and said: "Show me your loop again."

"What, so you can see how much better yours is?"

It came out a lot more biting than Lance had intended, so he stopped Keith from replying anything by throwing a hand up. Loops were Lance's favorite jumps to do, if maybe not to watch, and he revered in the sound of his blades sliding against the ice, and the satisfying _clack_ when he landed. He spun around to look at Keith, to gauge his reaction maybe, and found Keith already looking at him, smiling again.

He was smiling way too much to be normal. Lance didn’t know Keith well at all, so he shouldn’t have judged, but Keith never seemed the kind of person to give a lot of genuine smiles. He was focused, determined, smiled for the cameras sometimes, but never for other people or just because he wanted to. At least that was what Lance had thought, until he smiled at Lance for an average double loop, and clapped him on the shoulder and said _nice_ and then -

"Um, do you – it's kind of late already now-"

Lance looked at the clock and did a double take that had him wobbling in his skates. It was late. He couldn’t remember ever staying this long for training when he didn’t have to.

"But you have a surprisingly good loop technique-"

"Thanks," Lance interjected, and wanted to go on, but Keith continued over him.

"Do you think you could show me sometime?"

This time around, he really stumbled, and would have fallen over, if Keith hadn’t grabbed his arm.

"Sh-show you? My _loop_?"

It was embarrassing how high his voice had climbed, but it was hard to believe what he was hearing. Keith was something like the king of jumps. Any jump. He didn’t need help, least of all by a measly ice dancer, and, he hadn’t even enjoyed Lance's presence until maybe the last ten minutes. But Keith nodded, still completely earnest.

"Yeah. If we're at the same rink anyway, that's convenient, right? And if Allura's out of commission for a while, I could help you out, too."

Lance had to get his floundering under control. Maybe he had misjudged, and Keith had actually had fun, too. And how could he pass up this opportunity? Keith was like the answer to the wishes he had never dared voice, and a mystery waiting to be solved.

Their shared way back to the lockers made Lance giddy, even if they didn’t speak. He hummed as he sat next to Keith and unlaced his skates. A plan was forming in his mind, and it took him in completely. He startled out of it when Keith tapped him on the shoulder. Keith had changed, jacket zipped up to his chin and his bag slung over his shoulder, and he looked hesitant, but he still held his phone out to Lance, and his voice was closer to his TV voice than it had been the whole morning.

"Give me your number? So we can arrange something. For training together."

Lance took the phone, and his fingers were surprisingly steady as he put in his details. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening. It became a little more real when his fingers brushed Keith's when he gave the phone back, and there was skin, not glove. His actual, soft, warm hand, and it jolted Lance back into reality. He looked at Keith, at his small smile and his hair, fanning out above his shoulders now, and his dark eyes. Lance had been closer to him than this before, and, with the way things were shaping up, it wouldn’t be the last time he was. The confusion ebbed away, and a smile slowly spread on his face.

"Cool. Maybe, in a few weeks, I'll teach you to lead on the ice, if you want to."

Keith made a confused noise behind his back as Lance turned around, but he just smiled to himself. He couldn’t wait for _in a few weeks_. He hoped it'd be sooner. On the way home, he took out his own phone, and sent his first text to Allura since they'd come back.

_i think it's finally time to do it. i have an idea for our next exhibition._

**Author's Note:**

> \- blades for ice dance are different from blades for other figure skating disciplines, and dancing with "normal" blades as well as jumping with ice dance blades is... not the norm. just assume it works here, for whatever reason. these boys are just very talented, or something.  
> \- even though keith and lance are both experienced skaters in this, you really shouldn't do a lift just on a whim on ice without ever trying it off ice first. also i can't guarantee this would actually work with two athletic guys if they're not specifically training to lift someone their weight.  
> \- not sure how realistic it is that someone who hasn't seriously trained for it can just go and do double jumps. probably not very realistic, but just take it as lance being super talented?  
> \- the homophobia part just randomly wanted to be written, and i didn't do loads of research on homophobia in figure skating, but i remember reading a lot about how prevalent it still is, so i just went with it.  
> -please look at [this video](https://www.instagram.com/p/BqMOr-uhg5y/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) of scott moir i keep laughing my ass off when i look at it and after writing this fic i can't stop imagining lance
> 
> you can follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/cheeseroyalty) or on [tumblr](http://cheeseroyalty.tumblr.com/)! i want to be less of a lurker this year, so i plan to be more active (especially on twitter) and post more about my fics and maybe some hcs/ ideas and stuff. if you also still enjoy klance and maybe wanna talk to me, i'd be happy if you checked it out :) i still have enough klance ideas to last for years.  
> anyway thanks for reading and kudos and comments are always appreciated!


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